Adding pesto to Caprese salad takes it up a notch. This version features ripe grape tomatoes, sliced in half, buffalo mozzarella balls, sliced in half, fresh basil leaves, all drizzled with olive oil and then topped generously with pesto. The pesto is homemade, using Pecorino Romano cheese, olive oil, basil and garlic. This version has no nuts, but is made bright and tangy with fresh lemon juice.
This salad boasts tons of flavour and has a wow factor for serving to company. It also travels well and is easy to assemble. I highly recommend you add some dollops of pesto to your next Caprese salad.
I made this tuna salad today for a potluck picnic lunch. The weather was beautiful and the salad was perfect. I made it nice and lemony and it was a hit. The lemon and the arugula are such a good contrast to the beans and the tuna.
I mostly followed the recipe; besides adding extra lemon juice (I used the juice of two lemons), I also soaked my chopped onion in cold water to mellow it before draining it and mixing it in, and I added a third can of tuna.
Since I don’t have leftovers from this batch, I think I will have to make it again soon just for me.
This is my new creation–delicious Medjool dates stuffed with mini eggs and dusted with salt.
In the kitchen in my office, we have a counter where treats collect. One day, we had both mini eggs and dates, so I felt I had to stuff the dates with mini eggs. I pitted the dates and was busy stuffing mini eggs inside them when a colleague walking through suggested adding salt. Brilliant.
So the result is this delicious bite that features the creamy sweetness of the dates, milk chocolate with a candy crunch, and salt to tamp down the sweetness and boost the intensity of the dates’ other notes.
I like too that it is appropriate for Easter, Ramadan and Passover, all at once. Quite a happy accident.
Recently, my office just did something we hadn’t done in three years–have a potluck lunch together.
Because the World Cup was on, we made that our theme. We wrote out the names of the 24 countries that made the cut on slips of paper and then passed around a bowl for people to choose a slip from. My slip read “Serbia” and I knew immediately that I would make a version of cevapi, their spiced meat sausages.
I read lots of recipes, and settled on the flavour profile of this one. I used beef and lamb, with a ratio of about 2:1 beef to lamb. However, I did not add mint, onion, eggs, bread or water to the mix. I did add chopped parsley, lots of freshly ground black pepper, lots of chopped fresh garlic, salt and dried oregano, cumin and coriander. I also added some baking soda, which showed up in several recipes I read, liketheseones. I made a large batch of the meat mixture and used about half of it for the potluck, storing the rest of it the freezer.
I don’t have a barbecue, so I baked them in the oven for half an hour at 350 C with a sheet of parchment paper under them, and they turned out quite nicely.
I made these quick pickled onions to go with them. I followed the recipe, except I used sugar as the sweetener and heated the liquid in the microwave.
Both the sausages and the onions turned out well and they went beautifully together. The baking soda gives them a springy texture and helps them hold together. A week or so later, I made up the rest of the mixture and ate those with tzatziki and the onions. Absolutely delicious.
These would work well as an appetizer or a main meal. I love the idea of having some of these handy in the freezer. I will definitely be making these again soon.
I love mayo on hot, crisp French fries. Even better is mayo with a bit of zip. I had some leftover steak from a dinner out, so I decided I needed to have steak frites at home. So for dinner I had cold, beautifully cooked steak with hot fries and tangy mango, and some red wine on the side. A feast!
This is one of my favourite versions of horseradish mayo. My take on it is bursting with flavour, but the beauty of customizing your own mayo is that you can easily adjust it to your personal taste. If you find this too strong, dilute it by adding more mayo. I use 3 tablespoons prepared horseradish, 1 tablespoon grainy mustard, and 2 ½ tablespoons lemon juice to 1 cup mayo. (I actually prefer Miracle Whip, but YMMV).
A little goes a long way. I used it for fries, but it would be great on a fried egg sandwich or a burger, as well.
I was on vacation in the Caribbean recently and had a ton of delicious food while I was there. One of my fondest memories is of dinner at a rib shack that included your choice of any three sides with an order of ribs. I chose coleslaw, beans and rice, and plantains. Ever since, I have been thinking about eating plantains again.
I bought a couple of green plantains about two weeks ago and have been patiently waiting until the skins turned black enough for me to fry them.
I made these today, as a side for spicy shrimp and rice. I used this recipe as a guide. I fried them in a stovetop wok in a mix of butter and oil. As they turned brown, I removed them to a plate lined with paper towel to drain. I generously salted them, and then I got to try them.
They were fantastic hot. I am taking some for lunch tomorrow, and will eat those ones cold. They were so tasty and so easy to make. I will definitely be making these again soon.
I have been rereading Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher novels. I recently started Murder in the Dark, which is set in the Christmas season, and got to a chapter which starts with an epigraph about figgy pudding from “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” The obsessive part of my brain kicked in, and I started researching figgy pudding recipes.
I like desserts with dark flavours. I love all things featuring mincemeat, love dark fruitcake, and am passionate about sticky toffee pudding (note to self: blog about STP sometime soon…). So, as I read the recipes, I felt that figgy pudding was right up my street. The recipes featured dates, raisins and figs. As I read on I realized that I actually had copious amounts of all of these dried fruits in my pantry. I also had a large amount of orange juice that needed to be used up, and I had been looking for a way to use it in baking.
This happy confluence led to me trying this recipe. Well, using it as a starting point. I love how she bakes it in individual ramekins. My batter ended up being quite large, so I baked it in a loaf pan. Other changes I made: I added more raisins, so some were in the pureed date and fig mixture and some were left whole; I used orange juice instead of water; I soaked the dried fruits in the orange juice for half an hour before I started cooking (and soaked the raisins that remained whole in more orange juice); I used white sugar instead of honey; and when I took it out of the oven, I spooned more orange juice over the warm cake.
It is delicious and fruity. There is a subtle cinnamon flavour that comes through as well. I had some heavy cream that needed using too, so I just poured some of that over the warm pudding.
The texture is lovely. It is tender and moist. It is a fantastic use of coconut flour, which is such a good binder.
I would happily serve this as a dessert. It is very comforting and perfect for when the weather is frigid. I plan to freeze some portions so I can enjoy it later. Maybe for breakfast. Maybe with custard. Or maybe with whipped cream… So I have lots to look forward to.
When I was a kid, I loved a sandwich spread my mom used to make: grated radishes and cheddar cheese, with a bit of mayo to hold it together. I ate it as a sandwich filling, on toast and on crackers.
Now that I avoid bread products, I had been trying to come up with new ways to eat it. I think it would be lovely on a bed of lightly dressed greens. And it might be quite good blended with grated cabbage.
But, as I am always working on my quest to find new french fry toppings, it occurred to me that this spread might be fantastic on fries. The scientist in me demanded that I try it, and I can report that it was in fact fantastic. The radish and cheese mixture was nicely chilled, and it made a great contrast with the hot fries. I did four layers: fries, radish spread, fries, radish spread. It was really good and I highly recommend it.
How to make the spread: Grate equal parts of red radishes and old cheddar. Moisten as much as you like with mayonnaise or miracle whip. Add salt and pepper to taste. And that’s it. Enjoy it with the substrate of your choice.
Some time ago, I bought a large jar of pickled eggplant. I like eggplant and was curious what the pickled version would be like. I had no idea how to use it, though, so I googled it. Of course, most of the answers involved bread products (sandwiches, crusty bread). And while I do use bought bread products occasionally, I try not to eat them too frequently.
I am also attempting to systematically use up items in my pantry. So that meant coming up with a non-bread way to use my eggplant. I like the idea of using it in a red Thai curry, and I like the idea of using it with pasta. I plan to try those later.
Yesterday, I decided to use it in a topping for french fries. I sliced up three small onions and fried them until they were just starting to turn golden. I added in about 1/4 cup each of pickled eggplant and pickled banana peppers. I put some fries in the oven to bake and let the onions, eggplant and peppers continue to cook together on medium low, and grated some old cheddar.
When the fries were done, I laid out a base layer on a plate. I added a layer of grated cheese, and then all of the onion topping. I added another layer of cheese and then placed the plate back in the hot oven for about five minutes to let the cheese melt.
The combination of flavours in the topping is fantastic. Cooking the vegetables together on the stove let the heat from the pickles infuse throughout the mixture. It was sweet, tangy and spicy. The acidity cut through the richness of the cheese nicely.
I think the combination would work well as a non-fry topping as well, either hot or cold. I am going to experiment with that next. It would be great to come up with an interesting vegan side dish. After all, I have a 750 mL jar of pickled eggplant to get through…
Sometimes I get obsessed with a recipe and cannot stop thinking about it until I have bought the ingredients. I saw this lovely rosti recipe earlier this week and instantly my brain was filled with thoughts of toasted parsnips and potatoes. The recipe suggests serving it with sour cream laced with caramelized onions, both of which are staples in my diet, so it seemed like a no-brainer.
I made the rosti (with grated potatoes and parsnips and finely sliced onions) in my cast iron pan. When it was fresh, I topped a slab of it with two sunny-side-up eggs, and it was glorious.
Today, I am enjoying leftovers. I sliced the cold rosti, heated it in the microwave and ate it smeared with the caramelized onion sour cream. Bliss. A comforting dish to help you fight the dark days of late December.
A Flour By Any Other Name 